AfriGeneas Free Persons of Color Forum

What you are describing here is only one sub-sample of FPOC and the system called Plašage (see link below to excellent article on wikipedia. Be careful not to over romaticize the system however.

"Kind masters" is not a word I would connect with the sexual exploitation of women; the young women who were set up as placee's had little choice in the matter. The practice of plašage - though written about extensively these days, and highly idealized, has to be looked at after removing rose colored glasses. To be a child of 12 or thirteen, bartered off to a white male - of any age, having sex at that age, bearing children, forced to be "faithful" (meaning you were tossed out in the street if found with a lover) is actually a nightmare.

The majority of FPOC overall were listed as black - not mixed, in all US census records. Those listed as "mixed" in Louisiana did not all derive from the plašage system; some stemmed from the bordellos, some from liaisons between working class whites and blacks or mulattos, and others were decendants of marriages between and among FPOC and or slaves.